What does “Furious 8” Success Signify about the Film Industry?

The “Fate of the Furious” also known as “Furious 8” beat out Force Awakens as well as Jurassic World. A lot of this series is just hot chicks and fast cars. What does “Furious 8” success signify about the Film Industry? Few quotes from www.quora.com.

Divij Sonak, Movie fanatic, Dreamer, Currently living an ordinary life

It signifies how immensely important international markets have become to Hollywood and how significantly a movie’s international box-office performance can impact its bottom line. The Fate of the Furious has already made over $900 million worldwide of which, only $165 million has come from the domestic box-office with the remaining $745 million coming from territories outside the United States. That’s over 80% of the movie’s revenues coming from the non-domestic segment.

To better understand this impact, let’s contrast this movie’s opening weekend numbers with those of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Jurassic World.

All three movies have made more than 50% of their money from international markets. This trend holds true for a lot many other movies not on the list as well such as Avatar, The Avengers, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II and most of the Transformers franchise. It also holds true for some other movies that, in the absence of their international grosses, would’ve been declared a bomb. Movies like Warcraft were salvaged only by this alternate revenue stream.

It’s become increasingly clear that international box-office matters, more so than ever. Which is why you’re going to see a lot more movies aggressively promoted in and targeted towards worldwide sensibilities. No wonder then that a property like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 that would’ve been considered otherwise obscure for a market like India is seeing some heavy-duty promotion there.

And no wonder then you see Chris Pratt rapping to Indian Butter Chicken.

Also worth noting is how much important China has become to Hollywood in comparison to the other markets. Continuing with the movie in question, The Fate of the Furious opened to $190 million in China and has made a record-breaking $319 million from China alone – twice as much as it did from the North American box office. It is already the fourth-highest grossing film in China.

So yes, brace it. Foreign box-office matters a hell lot. And don’t be surprised if you see lots and lots of mainstream Hollywood movies filmed in Indian locations or casting Asian actors in prominent roles. The trend is here to stay for now.

Jarod Bianti, Worked on FAR too many movies to count

Firstly, your premise is flawed by the fact that you’re basing your argument in on my U.S. opening weeks. Take a look at Canada and the U.S. Fast 8 doesn’t even rank.

Secondly, it isn’t just fast women and hot cars. It’s action. And a continuing storyline. A saga. A franchise. And a fateful memory to Paul Walker (RIP Paul).

What does it signify? Nothing much other than what the franchise is doing actually works. Hollywood is PURELY about making money. Fast does that better than anyone.

Let me tell you the simple reason why: few of us will ever make it to space like in Star Wars. But a LOT of us drive fast cars and can relate to many scenes that the franchise shows.

The end.

Ankit Tripathi

It doesn’t signify anything about the film industry. It is just a film, like hundreds produced every year, vying to make money and get maximum return on their investment.

A film was made, people paid money to watch it because they thought it would be entertaining, the producers made money.

It is jut the way any business works. You offer a product, if people think they want to use it, they buy it.

Luke Gasparre, Cinema Manager at eVent Cinemas (2016-present)

I agree that it is a pile of trash. But it’s success was not so much about quality, market interest or the current state of the audience for films.

It is not that the quality of Hollywood or the film industry as a whole is declining, rather it is the stale competition.

Working in a cinema the film week (Thursday to Thursday) in which it was released, you can see that a large portion of the casual audience flocked to The Fate of the Furious. Why? Because the competition this week has been the most stale I have seen this year. On our particular premises, with 14 cinemas, the kids market is occupied by the ‘Lego Batman’ and Smurfs films, the foreign market by a French film called ‘Raw’ and an anime, the elderly demographic drawn to a British film titled ‘Their Finest’ and the comedic market by ‘Going in Style’. ‘Beauty and the Beast’, the only other real competitor, has been in for almost a month, so interest is dying down.

As you can see, this leaves the primary moviegoing audience very few options.

Hence, The Fate of the Furious accounts for those who want to see action, the teenage and young adult demographics, and the casual crowd.

That is why we are running 4 simultaneous screenings of Furious 8 every couple of hours.

Cameron Comeau, Produced and directed over 30 films and television shows

That the world still loves movies.

For years, people like myself in the film industry have had concerns over how to draw in crowds to the box office, and as god-awful as the Fast & Furious franchise is in terms of “good cinema”, it proves that people still love to go see movies. Tentpole pictures such as these generate millions (somtimes billions) in revenue for the big studios, which allows them and their conglomerates to produce indie/art films to preserve the magic of filmmaking.

Although I’m not a huge fan of the franchise, hats off to them for keeping the public interested in movies and continuing to draw larger and larger crowds to the theaters.